The 4 rules of Wonder addiction

I never build the ancient ones.
I like The Knights Templar though (that gives a Crusader every 5 turns). I've never calculated it shield-wise, but I like it.
The Smith's Trading Company (pays upkeep for trade improvements) rocks. I also never calculated it, but with 20 cities and 4 builings, that's 80 gpt. Good trade.
Hoover dam: rocks. Big time. (if on a big enough continent)
Leo's Workshop: I thought it was a great deal (only half the upgrade price for units) but I see that's I've not used it as much as I would think. But then again, maybe I just didn't remember every single unit, because of the low upgrade price.
ToE - that's where you clinch the win.
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Then in modern times, when I'm in the lead, I like to just build every wonder available. Why? Because I can.
 
About Wonder Addiction: what if we capture the Wonder from another civilization that already built it? Does it still count as "Wonder Addiction" then?
 
re-read the first post in this thread. It's all about resisting the temptation to build wonders.

Capturing them is an entirely different matter. It doesn't cost you shields during the critical parts of the game, and it usually happens as part of your strategic progress towards whatever victory you are planning.
 
The reason I asked is because the Great Library is very valuable for tech research, but at least one of the AIs usually ends up building it anyway.
 
About Wonder Addiction: what if we capture the Wonder from another civilization that already built it? Does it still count as "Wonder Addiction" then?
When you shake at night when you didn't do it for a day, you might reach the criterium.
 
The thing that makes capturing the Great Library so appealing is that it can help you out in the tech race no matter what type of civ you are using. Its one of the few wonders that can potentially help any playing strategy (cultural, military, tech-based, whatever). Most other wonders only provide a very specific function (i.e. Knights Templar is only good for military, Shakespeare's is only good for cultural, etc.)
 
Since I am a low level player (never above and just barely at Regent) I like the Pyramids if I can get them.

I just had a very early war and got a Great Leader - instant Pyramid power.:king:

I admit to a certain wonder addiction but I have also learned not to care if I don't get them. C'est la vie.
 
I must disagree with your statement, i'm an Emperor-Deity player, and i always play one civ, cus` i do believe it has the best traits (French, Commercial Industrious) c'mon you wont tell me expansionist trait is better? in what? killing barbarians? ~.~

Also i always shot for the Great Library since its the base of my core strategy i use most often ;o
 
1. The Great Library is OFF limits. Never, absolutely never build this wonder - not even with a SGL! The single biggest wonder crutch of CIV - is this wonder. Your skills at tech research, tech trading, diplomacy, and the use of the luxury slider will be TREMENDOUSLY hampered. This single wonder delayed my Regent to Monarch transition by months.

I find it funny that Ision writes this and then SirPleb says

I want to add a comment about rule 1, re the Great Library: Please don't think that this rule is just to deliberately make your game harder. The Great Library can have a worse effect than just as a crutch - counting on it stops you from even thinking about getting ahead in tech and thus limits your gameplay.

But then a little while later SirPleb DID build the Great Library in his Hall of Fame Sid game with the Iroquois. Then he gave the thing away and took it back for more tech. Did it "limit his gameplay"? Not at all. If someone here really thinks so, they should try and beat his hall of fame score. Even miss Moonsinger says she benefited from his tactic. She also says that it may be that her score benefited from building J.S. Bach's Cathedral in 90 A.D. Don't build a wonder until you've mastered regent? Your scores will go down if you have less happy citizens... and don't you want a higher score usually? I also find it interesting that Ision says

My advice is simple: do not build a single wonder until you have mastered Regent level. Do this, and you will have your first Deity victory in a fraction of the time it took me.

Except that the Deity-strategy for Deity Noobs by Drakan relies on the Great Library. Sure enough, someone here will come back and say that you can do tech-trading on Deity intelligently and keep up. But, that works out as the whole problem... tech-trading speeds up the tech pace and on Deity and from what I've read Sid-level also, it seems that you generally don't want to speed up the tech pace at all... people often play archipelago on Sid to slow down the tech pace as it already goes so fast that you'll need more time to build infrastructure and/or train units before you can do all that much. Also, The Great Library, has economic benefits, since you can shut off research.

Certain civ traits, do NOT lend themselves to building certain wonders. And one last thing... in order to build the Great Library on Deity, what do you need to do? You need to mine a bunch of tiles around your selected city and add in workers at the right time. Pre-building can also help, though it doesn't come as necessary. In order to do this, experience with the 20k game or building other wonders in non-20k games helps. So, this article works as fairly useless for Deity Noobs, since they probably want to know how to build *a* wonder when in hot competition for one in the first place. The wonder they want to build interestingly enough comes as the one called "off limits" in this article.

Believe it or not, I think the article actually addresses Emperor and "below" players better, since on those levels you can whack the AI early and keep up in tech much easier. I don't have a good feeling as to where demi-god fits into all of this... I do play it, but it seems hard to say.
 
I guess that I am puzzled by the view that building Wonders is bad. They are part of the game, yet a fair number of people argue that they should not be used. In my view, that is like saying bombers are a part of the game, but you should never use them, or cutting down forests for a shield boost is part of the game, but you should never do that. They are there, I will use them.

As for racing to get to Deity level. so what? I could not care less if I NEVER play at Deity level, and I probably will not. I play for fun, which some of the posters seem to have forgotten in their bludgeoning of me over the head to play in the same way that they do, or in a very similar way. I enjoy playing with the Wonders, tweaking their specs, changing what they do, making them into what I would view as a more accurate portrayal of their effects.

For those of you who do not like to build Wonders, and think that no human player should build them, I have a simple proposal. PUT YOUR EFFORTS WHERE YOUR POSTS ARE AND ELIMINATE THEM FROM THE GAME, TOTALLY. NO WONDERS FOR ANYONE. No Great Library, no Statue of Zeus, no Theory of Evolution, no Hoover Dam, no Manhattan Project, no Apollo Project. NOTHING. Then see how much fun the game is to play. Otherwise, quit telling people how they should play. You want to tell me how you play, that is fine.

DO NOT TELL ME HOW I SHOULD PLAY.
 
Please stop taking posts intended to discuss how to win more consistently/on higher levels for people who do care about such things as a personal affront.
 
Firstly, this article is primarily aimed at new players - those who've just started playing the game, are trying to move up levels, and are wondering why they're not doing so successfully. Wonder Addiction - in particular over-reliance on the GLib - is only part of any number of reasons why a new player may be struggling. However it is still a valid point worth addressing.

Second, Ision is not by any means advocating abandoning all Wonder builds. He is suggesting two things in particular: 1. don't use the GLib, ever. 2. Limit Wonder-building to a single city. In other words what this article is trying to do is encourage players to invest in worker management skills, trading skills, etc. in order to further their research (rather than relying on the GLib - and below Monarch human players can easily out-strip AI research before the GLib even comes into play, in other words, it actually SLOWS the human research rate), and prevent "Wonder Spamming": having 2 or 3 or more cities all churning out Wonders, which is inevitably to the detriment of their empire as a whole.

Third, I believe that both SirPleb and Moonsinger had long "mastered Regent" by the time they played their respective Sid games ;) . So they can do whatever they want! Besides, Sid Level is often described as a totally different game to Civ3, so as far as the human goes, all bets are off. Do what you need to win. I've not studied SirPleb's game in depth, but in Moonsinger's, she was pulling the Sid AI's strings throughout - pretty darned impressive, really.

Fourth, for the experienced player who has found their comfort level and who is interested in playing the game for their enjoyment, not in a competitive/HoF/GOTM style every time they start up a map, what, when, how, and where they build Wonders, units, buildings, cities, how to mod the game, and so on - this article isn't aimed at them, so please quietly ignore it.
 
Concerning wonder spamming and such: Ision's article seems to forget one victory condition open to *all* players... the 20k game. Perhaps it works out better that newbies at Regent should master the 20k game before thinking about a Monarch game. After all, in a 20k game you have fewer cities, slower expansion, less military, etc. When you move up a level the AI has more cities, faster expansion, more military, etc. In other words, playing a 20k game at say Regent in some ways might behave more like a Monarch game than a non-20k game, in that you might have a similar *relative* power position in a Regent 20k game than you would in a non-20k Monarch game. Of course in a good, non-OCC, 20k game you build tons of wonders... and not just in your 20k city.

Having 2 or 3 cities building wonders in a 20k game (at least on Monarch on up) does NOT function as a detriment to the empire as a whole. It actually helps the empire, since it can lock out the AI from completing a wonder at the wrong time and causing a wonder cascade, so that your 20k city misses say Copernicus's Observatory. Here your empire ends off better, because it lies closer to its victory condition this way.
 
Except in a 20K game, you generally only have one city building Wonders. You might turn another city or two over to building some of the low-culture Medieval wonders (specifically Sun Tzu and Leo's) to prevent the cascade tripping and you losing out on Coper's/Bach/Adam Smith, but such cities won't be building those wonders until after the Rex phase of the game, and will have reached a decent size. Often your FP city if your 20K city is the capital.

Particularly in a 20K game, where unless you really luck out with food bonuses your Rex phase will be 1-2 settlers or more behind the AI, you definitely can't afford to have a second city building a Wonder whilst your 20K city focuses on culture. Besides which you want as many Ancient Era Wonders as you can stuff into a single city for the culture doubling bonus and (in C3C) the tourism cash. Except at the very lowest levels, or when SGLs come along, you really have to decide on one vs another - Pyramids or Oracle usually - because the one Ancient Wonder you definitely want ASAP in a 20K game is the GLib.
 
I'm not a Deity-level player, nor even Demigod. But I am a pretty solid Emperor-level player. I'll admit that I'm one of those players around here who tells new players not to build the Great Wonders, at least until they've mastered some basic skills.
1. The Great Library is OFF limits. Never, absolutely never build this wonder - not even with a SGL! The single biggest wonder crutch of CIV - is this wonder. Your skills at tech research, tech trading, diplomacy, and the use of the luxury slider will be TREMENDOUSLY hampered. This single wonder delayed my Regent to Monarch transition by months.
I find it funny that Ision writes this and then SirPleb says
My advice is simple: do not build a single wonder until you have mastered Regent level. Do this, and you will have your first Deity victory in a fraction of the time it took me.
But let's look at Ision's opening to this article:
Let me start by saying that I DO build wonders, and I think they are a wonderful part of this game. They create variety and lead to a myriad of different strategies. Having said that, had I not been a victim of 'wonder fixation' as a newbie I would have become a better player FAR faster. My learning curve to Monarch would have been reduced by months - my first Deity victory would not have taken over a dozen failed attempts.

New and inexperienced players (chieftain to regent) make certain common errors. High among these is "Wonder Fixation".
I don't think this article is advocating a complete absence of Wonder-building at all. I do think that it's aimed at getting new players to learn to live without them until they've reached a point where they can make a decent evaluation of the risks & costs vs. the reward.

The Pyramids & the GLib are great examples. They some relatively early in the game, carry a pretty high shield cost and are very powerful. They're also lots of fun. The problem comes when a new player, struggling at Chieftain or Warlord, has crippled their own REX phase by building 3-4 Ancient Age wonders in their capital (for example). It's not that their Wonders aren't doing them any good. It's that they've failed to understand what those 1000+ shields have cost them. The Pyramids just aren't that powerful when building them has limited your REX phase to 5-6 cities. The GLib still gets you the free techs, but the economic benefits that come with being able to shut off research just aren't that great when the same thing has happened.

But then a little while later SirPleb DID build the Great Library in his Hall of Fame Sid game with the Iroquois. Then he gave the thing away and took it back for more tech. Did it "limit his gameplay"? Not at all. If someone here really thinks so, they should try and beat his hall of fame score. Even miss Moonsinger says she benefited from his tactic. She also says that it may be that her score benefited from building J.S. Bach's Cathedral in 90 A.D. Don't build a wonder until you've mastered regent? Your scores will go down if you have less happy citizens... and don't you want a higher score usually? I also find it interesting that Ision says
I want to add a comment about rule 1, re the Great Library: Please don't think that this rule is just to deliberately make your game harder. The Great Library can have a worse effect than just as a crutch - counting on it stops you from even thinking about getting ahead in tech and thus limits your gameplay.
First, let me admit that I don't play for score, but I do have a basic understanding of the scoring system. With that caveat, if you're struggling with Regent, I'd venture to say that improving your gameplay skill will help your scores more in the long run than building the GLib in every game.

There are some games in which the GLib is almost (if not entirely) essential. While there may be some DG/Deity/Sid games played and won without the GLib, I can't think of a single one that I've read where getting it (either by building or conquest) was not in the game plan. But those are players who understand the game well enough to understand the cost of tying up one of their cities long enough to complete the GLib and the risks of: (1) getting caught in a cascade; and (2) having their empire's production & expansion hampered by having that city tied up.

Again, I think this article is aimed for new players. At Chieftain and Warlord, a human player really shouldn't need the GLib. Want it? Maybe. But need? No. The human player can out-tech the AI at that level pretty easily, once basic empire management skills have been mastered. At Monarch and Emperor, even I can out-tech the AI most of the time. I think it's important for new players to understand what they can accomplish without wonders. I think it's important for them to learn what to do when they don't succeed in building them.

Also, I agree with eldar: I think it safe to say that Moonsinger and SirPleb had both "mastered Regent" by the time they played the games to which you refer.

Except that the Deity-strategy for Deity Noobs by Drakan relies on the Great Library. Sure enough, someone here will come back and say that you can do tech-trading on Deity intelligently and keep up. But, that works out as the whole problem... tech-trading speeds up the tech pace and on Deity and from what I've read Sid-level also, it seems that you generally don't want to speed up the tech pace at all... people often play archipelago on Sid to slow down the tech pace as it already goes so fast that you'll need more time to build infrastructure and/or train units before you can do all that much. Also, The Great Library, has economic benefits, since you can shut off research.
As I said above, at DG/Deity/Sid (from what I've read), the GLib is often in the game plan. A "Deity Noob," though, has probably mastered Regent. ;)


Certain civ traits, do NOT lend themselves to building certain wonders. And one last thing... in order to build the Great Library on Deity, what do you need to do? You need to mine a bunch of tiles around your selected city and add in workers at the right time. Pre-building can also help, though it doesn't come as necessary. In order to do this, experience with the 20k game or building other wonders in non-20k games helps. So, this article works as fairly useless for Deity Noobs, since they probably want to know how to build *a* wonder when in hot competition for one in the first place. The wonder they want to build interestingly enough comes as the one called "off limits" in this article.
I don't think this is aimed at Deity Noobs. This article isn't really meant for the player who: (1) understands how to use workers; (2) knows when to start a prebuild (where necessary); (3) can time adding of workers to the wonder city; (4) has the skills necessary to build a wonder when the AI is competing for the same one.

I guess that I am puzzled by the view that building Wonders is bad. They are part of the game, yet a fair number of people argue that they should not be used. . . . .
I don't think anyone is advocating playing without ever building any wonders ever, nor arguing that they should never be used. The Great Wonders are lots of fun & a benefit to the empire. What I do see some people advocating is capturing wonders rather than building them. If you're playing for a culture victory, that's a bad idea, as captured wonders don't generate culture. For a conquest victory, though, capturing the Pyramids puts a granary in every city on my continent as surely as building them does. Is there a cost? Sure, but the shields go into military units rather than the Pyramids. Is that, in part, a matter of playstyle? Of course. If that's not what you enjoy, that's fine.

. . . . For those of you who do not like to build Wonders, and think that no human player should build them, I have a simple proposal. PUT YOUR EFFORTS WHERE YOUR POSTS ARE AND ELIMINATE THEM FROM THE GAME, TOTALLY. NO WONDERS FOR ANYONE. No Great Library, no Statue of Zeus, no Theory of Evolution, no Hoover Dam, no Manhattan Project, no Apollo Project. NOTHING. Then see how much fun the game is to play. . . . .
I don't think that anyone's advocating completely giving up Wonders for human players (except maybe as a variant). I'm sure that there are players who could win a high-level "No Great Wonders" game, but I don't know of any high-level players who have completely given up wonders. The Great Wonders are fun. I don't deny that. But this article, and the "don't build wonders" posts aren't aimed at high-level players.

Otherwise, quit telling people how they should play. You want to tell me how you play, that is fine.

DO NOT TELL ME HOW I SHOULD PLAY.
You're not struggling with basic empire management techniques, so I don't think the "don't build Wonders" statements are directed at you. However, when new players show up looking for tips, as they routinely do around here, the question they're asking is: "What should I do?" The answer to that begins with "You should . . . "
 
I usually have my non-20K cities build Sun Tzu's, Leo's, Smith's and Magellan's, at least. If I ever got a leader in the 20k game (I haven't yet), I'd probably have a non-20k city build the military academy, since leaders come as a bit expensive for my 20k city to train them. You will have your 20k city building wonders during the ReX phase of the game... and that slows down your expansion.

You can afford to have a 2nd city building wonders whilst your 20k city focuses on culture. You can win 5 city 20k challenges on Monarch, and I suspect emperor. Hey look... the Great Library no longer comes as off-limits, it comes as the one Ancient Wonder you definitely want ASAP (in a 20k game).

Ision should have at least confined his comments to players who NEVER, EVER, EVER want to play the 20k game. The same goes for SirPleb. For "wonder fixation" I suggest playing the 20k game and forget other victory conditions. Don't fight it... use it.
 
For "wonder fixation" I suggest playing the 20k game and forget other victory conditions. Don't fight it... use it.

Why do you think 20K is my favourite VC? It lets the builder in me out with abandon... I don't have to care about squeezing every last penny out of every last city, ICSing until my eyeballs pop, or capturing vast chunks of territory before AD1.

Also because of borking effect on the Rex phase, it does notch up the difficulty by 1/2 to a full level.
 
Aabraxan,

I said I found Ision's comments funny, because he thinks that avoiding all wonders will lead to a faster first victory at Deity level. I disagree. Knowing how to build the Great Library, leads to a faster first victory at Deity level (in terms of real-life time and number of games played... not time played in a specific game or victory finish date). Currently, I have a game almost surely a few turns away from my first victory on Deity (I'll post my current save). I've NEVER played a game without building wonders... and I'd have to think hard to remember when I last didn't build the Great Library.

The problem comes when a new player, struggling at Chieftain or Warlord, has crippled their own REX phase by building 3-4 Ancient Age wonders in their capital (for example). It's not that their Wonders aren't doing them any good. It's that they've failed to understand what those 1000+ shields have cost them.

How in the world will NOT building wonders get newbies to understand ReXing better? Wouldn't an article on settler and worker factories work better? Wouldn't screenshots from the retirement replay of games with settler factories vs. those without work better? I simply don't see how abstaining from building wonders helps with understanding ReX better, as players who don't build wonders might just train units or build temples and such instead of settlers and workers.

The GLib still gets you the free techs, but the economic benefits that come with being able to shut off research just aren't that great when the same thing has happened.

At Emperor and below it at least seems not. In some Emperor-level games though, one might even argue that it works out better, since you can run high-deficit research in the high middle ages after Education. Maybe not though. Still, at Deity and Sid, and perahps Demi-God, it certainly does have significant benefits.

While there may be some DG/Deity/Sid games played and won without the GLib, I can't think of a single one that I've read where getting it (either by building or conquest) was not in the game plan.

This contradicts Ision's assertion that

Having said that, had I not been a victim of 'wonder fixation' as a newbie I would have become a better player FAR faster. My learning curve to Monarch would have been reduced by months - my first Deity victory would not have taken over a dozen failed attempts.

I don't think miss Moonsinger captured or had plans to capture the Great Library in her 80k game... at least she doesn't say anything about it in her write-up, and shows us some of her excellent trades.

At Chieftain and Warlord, a human player really shouldn't need the GLib.

For which victory condition?

I don't think this is aimed at Deity Noobs.

I have to disagree. Ision says:

My learning curve to Monarch would have been reduced by months – my first Deity victory would not have taken over a dozen failed attempts.

SirPleb added

My learning curve to Monarch would have been reduced by months – my first Deity victory would not have taken over a dozen failed attempts.

In the comments Ision says

The intent of my post is to point out 2 facts: firstly, that your learning curve to move up to any level - even chieftan to warlord - will be vastly improved if you can do so without having to rely on a wonder strategy.

Ision also says in the comments

Emp/Diety players are THE smallest minority of CIV players. My post is for those that would like to to take a crack at that smallest of minorities.

No... simply put, making building the Great Library off limits for Deity players doesn't make much sense... esepcially for Deity noobs. The four skills you mentioned I more or less learned from playing lots of 20k games, where I built tons of wonders. Those skills help a lot for a Deity attempt, in my opinion.
 

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